[Cortney Goff]

Hi Patrick!

We’ve been having a similar conversation so I am happy to share info about our organization.?

1. We use students as building managers. They essentially act as the policy enforcer and overseer of all operations and events — responding to emergencies/calling for assistance from campus safety/PD/911, enforcing Union and University policy, overseeing line staff and directing to task as needed, assisting with events, etc.
2. We have a pro staff member in the building typically Monday-Friday.
3. Our building managers work nights and weekends, and their duties are kind of narrowed versions of my job and our assistant director of events’ job. So during a usual day, I will respond to situations/emergencies, overseeing the general operations and make sure the building is clean, and act as policy enforcer, and the staff that works events report to me so I will check in on or assist them, while our AD of events oversees the event side of things and makes sure they have what they need and will do some policy enforcement in general but especially within the event spaces.
4. While we do have student building managers, we do also have another type of manager and are working on a professional development program in addition for all student employees. I’ll explain:
   1. Student area managers: these are student employees who oversee a specific area. Our four areas include Audio Visual, House Crew (room conversion), Information Desk, and Games Center. So they are the primary hirers, trainers, schedulers, and supervisors of those specific areas and are overseen by a member of the pro staff. I love this model and it has served us really well. The area manager is always someone who worked on that staff which helps with students respecting them as a manager (because who gets it more than someone who’s done it?) and just generally knowing what needs to be done correctly and well and how to do it.?
   2. Our professional development program: this is something we are really just starting to get off the ground. I had done this one semester as a GA about 3 years ago and it fizzled out when I graduated, but as pro staff now with my own GA, we are working hard to develop something cool. I really wanted to do something that set us apart as a place to work, to make us a place that really invests in our students. We talk about “student development” in higher ed a lot and I think it’s easy to take a backseat approach to it when we are employing students, but now as I’m starting to see students be a bit more energized and engaged post-COVID, I am hoping that tapping into that and investing in that will benefit not just us, but our students as well. We are planning monthly sessions open to all of our student employees and utilizing campus resources like the Career Center (who is doing our first session on resumes/cover letters next month), the Counseling Center, the Disability Resource Center, and others.?

I totally understand the conversations you’re having, as we’ve had the same ones in recent years. I think unless we really start having scheduling issues or issues finding suitable candidates, we will retain our student model. Your needs may also depend on how your campus generally structures other things; for example, you mentioned after-hours maintenance, which is not something we have to worry about because all of our maintenance is run through our campus Facilities Management department. So if that’s not an option for you, moving to a full-time staff model may make more sense. Or I do know of other campuses that employ students as maintenance, sometimes rolling them in with their room conversion crew, if that’s a potential model to pursue.?

Feel free to send me an email if you’d like to discuss and/or brainstorm further! Hopefully someone who has made this transition can comment their experiences as well. Best of luck!

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Cortney Goff
Assistant Director, Facilities and Operations
Missouri State University
Springfield MO
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-03-2024 09:03
From: Patrick Burke
Subject: Student Building Managers Vs. Full Time Staffing

Hello All

So, this is a multi-part discussion post:

We are researching how other high-traffic / large university student unions structure their student / Admin staffing.

• Do you have a Building Manager Position? Are they students or Full Time Staff? What are their responsibilities?
• Do you have Admin/ Pro Staff in the building at all times?  (Open till close)
• Do you have a hybrid approach to coverage (BM’s During the day & Pro Staff at Night)
• If you don’t have Student Building Managers, how do you provide leadership/ growth opportunities for your student staff?

Over the past few years, we have experienced the continual increase in responsibilities required for our student building manager role (Opening & closing buildings, Locking Spaces, Policy Enforcement, and After-hours maintenance issues). The amount of training needed for the position and limitations on work hours have posed a challenge in having part-time students maintain the Building Manager Position.

We have been considering the option of transitioning the Student Building Manager Position to multiple (2) Full-Time Roles. This would provide the Pro Staff coverage needed to handle client issues, policy enforcement & building operations.

We see both the pros and cons of this transition:

Pro: Full-time staff Trained in Policies & Procedures, Ability to confront high-level issues, manage building turnover, Professional not a Peer, Creating entry-level jobs for Student Affairs Graduates.

Con: Removing Student Leadership opportunity, Student Development

Does anyone have experience in transitioning Building managers from a Student Role to an entry-level professional position? 

——————————
Patrick C. Burke (He/Him/His)
Associate Director of Event Logistics & Student Development
Marshall Student Center | University of South Florida – Tampa
813-974-1974 | Burkep@usf.edu
——————————

[Deanna Cahoon-Draus]

Hi Patrick!

On the UWRF campus we have 14 student Building Managers, which I supervise and support. This year I transitioned the team to be cross-trained as both Info Desk and Building Managers, which I would say has been overall successful.?

I don’t have experience transitioning a team of Building Manager students to full-time staff, but I do wonder if a hybrid model would be more effective, especially if you only have the capacity to hire two professional staff. At our union, we’re open roughly 17 hours a day, and I’m thinking if you run a similar timeframe, you would need more than two people to run that throughout the year, especially with weekends, holidays, sick time, vacation, etc. Maybe that’s where you could still have some students, but decrease the size of your student team. Just some thoughts!

——————————
Deanna Cahoon-Draus
University Center Programs Specialist
University of Wisconsin River Falls
River Falls, WI
(715) 425-3986
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 12-03-2024 09:03
From: Patrick Burke
Subject: Student Building Managers Vs. Full Time Staffing

Hello All

So, this is a multi-part discussion post:

We are researching how other high-traffic / large university student unions structure their student / Admin staffing.

• Do you have a Building Manager Position? Are they students or Full Time Staff? What are their responsibilities?
• Do you have Admin/ Pro Staff in the building at all times?  (Open till close)
• Do you have a hybrid approach to coverage (BM’s During the day & Pro Staff at Night)
• If you don’t have Student Building Managers, how do you provide leadership/ growth opportunities for your student staff?

Over the past few years, we have experienced the continual increase in responsibilities required for our student building manager role (Opening & closing buildings, Locking Spaces, Policy Enforcement, and After-hours maintenance issues). The amount of training needed for the position and limitations on work hours have posed a challenge in having part-time students maintain the Building Manager Position.

We have been considering the option of transitioning the Student Building Manager Position to multiple (2) Full-Time Roles. This would provide the Pro Staff coverage needed to handle client issues, policy enforcement & building operations.

We see both the pros and cons of this transition:

Pro: Full-time staff Trained in Policies & Procedures, Ability to confront high-level issues, manage building turnover, Professional not a Peer, Creating entry-level jobs for Student Affairs Graduates.

Con: Removing Student Leadership opportunity, Student Development

Does anyone have experience in transitioning Building managers from a Student Role to an entry-level professional position? 

——————————
Patrick C. Burke (He/Him/His)
Associate Director of Event Logistics & Student Development
Marshall Student Center | University of South Florida – Tampa
813-974-1974 | Burkep@usf.edu
——————————

[Harrison Oliver]

Patrick,

At Wayne State we currently have 12 building managers on our team, all of which are student employees. Their day-to-day responsibilities are to function as a shift leader for the set-up assistants in our event spaces as well as fill a more customer facing role should any issues with events come up. Our building managers are also our first step in terms of policy enforcement but given the current political climate on campus we always make sure we are available to step in for more controversial enforcement situations should the student not feel comfortable. Building managers also Building managers are staffed in our building from one hour before the building opens until one hour after we close for the evening.?

For our pro-staff coverage in the building, we try to have as wide of coverage as we are able, and the result is professional staff coverage on most weekdays from 7:30 am until 9:30 pm. This does leave a total of two hours of each day where the building managers are on their own, but we are still available via Teams to answer any questions that arise. We do also have pro-staff coverage on Saturdays for the entirety of our standard operating hours. On a case-by-case basis we will work to add pro-staff coverage on weekends or late nights if there is need (professional a/v tech coverage, manager coverage due to the sensitive nature of an event, large university wide function, etc.)?

In the last 5 years we have added the roll of Audio/Visual technician, mostly as a result of it being logistically easier to add a position that exists university-wide to our team than starting from scratch, and that person fills the managerial level between building manager and pro-staff. They are a member of the professional staff but fill the nights and weekends role, which gives the students support on our more demanding days of building usage. This role is available for anyone to apply to, but we did not implement it in a way that students were automatically moved into it or outright encouraged to apply. The position itself has been hugely beneficial in supporting our building operations by having a more technologically capable supervisor present in the evenings and on Saturdays. I will add that this role was added without any modification to the number of building managers we keep on staff.?

Hopefully this made some sense, I am also happy to chat about this more if you have any questions. Best of luck as you navigate this challenging increase in demand!?

——————————
Harrison Oliver
Operations Supervisor
Wayne State University
Detroit MI
(313) 577-4817
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 12-03-2024 09:03
From: Patrick Burke
Subject: Student Building Managers Vs. Full Time Staffing

Hello All

So, this is a multi-part discussion post:

We are researching how other high-traffic / large university student unions structure their student / Admin staffing.

• Do you have a Building Manager Position? Are they students or Full Time Staff? What are their responsibilities?
• Do you have Admin/ Pro Staff in the building at all times?  (Open till close)
• Do you have a hybrid approach to coverage (BM’s During the day & Pro Staff at Night)
• If you don’t have Student Building Managers, how do you provide leadership/ growth opportunities for your student staff?

Over the past few years, we have experienced the continual increase in responsibilities required for our student building manager role (Opening & closing buildings, Locking Spaces, Policy Enforcement, and After-hours maintenance issues). The amount of training needed for the position and limitations on work hours have posed a challenge in having part-time students maintain the Building Manager Position.

We have been considering the option of transitioning the Student Building Manager Position to multiple (2) Full-Time Roles. This would provide the Pro Staff coverage needed to handle client issues, policy enforcement & building operations.

We see both the pros and cons of this transition:

Pro: Full-time staff Trained in Policies & Procedures, Ability to confront high-level issues, manage building turnover, Professional not a Peer, Creating entry-level jobs for Student Affairs Graduates.

Con: Removing Student Leadership opportunity, Student Development

Does anyone have experience in transitioning Building managers from a Student Role to an entry-level professional position? 

——————————
Patrick C. Burke (He/Him/His)
Associate Director of Event Logistics & Student Development
Marshall Student Center | University of South Florida – Tampa
813-974-1974 | Burkep@usf.edu
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